Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Charles Murphy

948 DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONFIDENTIAL OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY April 4, 1952 8. 119 ARCHIVES SERVICE" RECORDS NATIONAL AND S/S The Secretary called Mr. Murphy at the White House this afternoon and said that he had learned that Ambassador Wood- ward had called Mr. Murphy about Mr. Pearson's seeing the President over Easter weekend. Mr. Acheson also mentioned that Mr. Wrong had telephoned him today on the same subject and that he had an earlier conversation with him last week, about which he had not yet had an opportunity to talk with the President. The Secretary said that the Canadians were anxious to start steps so they could go ahead on their own with the St. Lawrence development since they thought it would not get out of Congress. These steps, the Secretary explained, have to do with the Inter- national Joint Commission building the dam across the river and the power development. The Secretary said that in an exchange of notes, which refers to the President's conversation with the Prime Minister and in a release put out about that conversation, it was stated that we would cooperate with the Canadians to get the dam built on our side and as a preliminary part of that we would get started on the power development. That meant that we would have to designate an agency of the United States to file an appli- cation with the Joint Commission. The Secretary said that Mr. Oscar Chapman had made a speech the other day, in which he had called the New York Power Authority to task and that he was a little confused by what Mr. Chapman had said. Mr. Murphy said he did not know what Mr. Chapman had said in the speech in question but he was afraid he was out of line. He said that Mr. Chapman hated to see this thing turned over to the New York Power Authority, and the President did too, but the President decided that if we could not get this thing done in a reasonable time without turning it over to the NYPA, then we were prepared to do that. Mr. Murphy said he had talked with Stanley Woodward two weeks ago and he thought the Canadians would say to the Presi- dent that it was time to go ahead. Mr. Murphy said that we would like a little more time. A survey had been made on the President's DECLASSIFIED Eir O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and S(D) or (E) Depr. of State letter, Aug. 9, 1973 BS NLT, , NARS Date INNIDENTIAL